Daily Archives: 11 Jul 2018

A recently filed financial disclosure shows U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan celebrated passing the House version of the Republican tax bill in quite the lavish way. According to the disclosure, Buchanan spent between $1 million and $5 million purchasing an Ocean Alexander yacht on Nov. 16, 2017, the same day he joined 226 other Republicans and no Democrats in voting for the first draft of the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.” The final tax bill passed Congress on Dec. 20 and was signed into law by President Donald Trump two days later.

While the tax plan was pitched as helping the middle class, it does so only minimally and temporarily if at all. For the nation’s highest earners and for corporations, however, it was a magnanimous change in policy. Count Buchanan among those benefitting bigly. It’s no secret that Buchanan, who represents Florida’s 16th Congressional District, is a wealthy man. According to a Roll Call report, his $73.9 million net worth makes him the eighth wealthiest member of Congress, and by far the wealthiest from the Sunshine State — U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney is $19 million behind in the No. 11 spot.

Given his net worth and income, progressive group Tax March estimated that the bill would save him up to $2.1 million on his taxes. That’s most of the way to a yacht, which likely trended toward the higher end of the reported range given that Ocean Alexander’s least expensive model — the 70-foot 70E Motoryacht — has a base price of $3.25 million.

Corrupt self serving reprobates fill Congress. This is just one of them. But go ahead, keep sending these people to ‘represent’ ‘you’. You deserve them.

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People can poo poo the ‘Graham Rule’ all they want but I’m telling you, it protects the innocent from false accusations and it protects potential victims from potential predators. I don’t know who this guy is but if he had simply refrained from being alone with folk (and these days you might as well say people and not just girls…) he could have avoided guilt and his poor victim the horror of being a victim.

The pastor of a Newport church is in jail on statutory rape and sexual battery charges after police allege he raped a teenage girl in the church.

Deputies were called to a home in Newport on Saturday night after the girl told family members she had been raped by her church pastor, James “Ronnie” Messer. The girl told police she rode with Messer to the Crossway Worship Center in Newport. She said the two entered the church and went into a room, where Messer began flirting with her and asked her several times to take off her clothes, which she initially refused to do. The girl said she felt scared and, at Messer’s direction, took off her clothes and laid on the floor, where Messer had sex with her.

The girl then told police that she and Messer went to the Hartford area to swim, but the water was too muddy and swift, so Messer took her to an undisclosed location. A detective interviewed Messer, who admitted having sex with the girl, but said the sex was consensual. Warrants were taken out on Messer and he was taken into custody and transferred to the Cocke County Jail. Messer faces charges of statutory rape, forcible rape and aggravated sexual battery by an authority figure.

THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS CONSENSUAL SEX with a child. Disgusting. And by the way, if you run across the name ‘James Ronnie Messer’ some day and he’s applied to be your Pastor, take a pass. Not only is he a child molester, he’s disgusting.

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This one, holy and universal Church has an imperishable continuance. Her existence rests, not on any chance but on God’s counsel and on the activity of the Holy Spirit. Therefore although particular parts of the visible Church may disappear, a congregation of elect and called will always be preserved on earth. — Heinrich Heppe,

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Choosing who to vote for is simple. Just ask yourself if you would let the candidate babysit for you. If you say no, then you’re a fool to let that person oversee the country. If you can’t trust them with what matters to you, why would you vote for them?

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Every Christian who urges other disciples of the crucified and risen Lord to ‘be themselves’ radically misunderstands and mistakenly ignores Jesus’s own demand that we deny ourselves and take up our cross and die to self. Only those who do are disciples.

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Some of the critics of Martin and Katie Luther’s marriage were determined to find fault with them, even if it meant drastically twisting facts to fit their narrative. One of the charges against Martin and Katie was that they had been living in sin before their marriage and Katie was pregnant when they got married. To prove their point, they referred to a child named Andreas who was born on July 11, 1525. There was indeed an Andreas born in the Luther family on that date, but the child in question was actually Andreas Kaufmann, the son of Martin’s sister. Andreas and his siblings later came to live with Martin and Katie after both of their parents died. Martin and Katie then became, in effect their foster parents. Martin and Katie’s first son, Hans, was born almost exactly a year after their wedding.

The picture is a propaganda piece, drawn to imply that Andreas was a Luther and not a Kaufmann and is from about 1750.

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The Tetrapolitan Confession, also called the Strassburg and the Swabian Confession, is the oldest confession of the Reformed Church in Germany, and represented the faith of four imperial cities, Strassburg, Constance, Memmingen, and Lindau, which at that time sympathized with Zwingli and the Swiss, rather than Luther, on the doctrine of the sacraments.

It was prepared in great haste, during the sessions of the Diet of Augsburg, by Bucer, with the aid of Capito and Hedio, in the name of those four cities (hence the name) which were excluded by the Lutherans from their political and theological conferences, and from the Protestant League. They would greatly have preferred to unite with them, and to sign the Augsburg Confession, with the exception of the tenth article on the eucharist, but were forbidden. The Landgrave Philip of Hesse was the only one who, from a broad, statesmanlike view of the critical situation, favored a solid union of the Protestants against the common foe, but in vain.

Hence, after the Lutherans had presented their Confession June 25, and Zwingli his own July 8, the four cities handed theirs, July 11, to the Emperor in German and Latin. It was received very ungraciously, and not allowed to be read before the Diet; but a confutation full of misrepresentations was prepared by Faber, Eck, and Cochlaeus, and read Oct. 24 (or 17). The Strassburg divines were not even favored with a copy of this confutation, but procured one secretly, and answered it by a “Vindication and Defense” in the autumn of 1531.*

_____*Philip Schaff and David Schley Schaff, History of the Christian Church (vol. 7; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1910), 719–720.